VANCE: A Movie Star Romance

by Lucy Lambert

  Outside, a sleek black limousine waited. The other guard waved at me to come forward, holding the back door of the car open.

  I thought about turning back while I leaned over and slid onto the waiting back seat. Then the door closed with a hollow thud and the car started moving.

  The two of us sat in the back of the limo, the space designed to hold maybe ten people.

  Sandra sat across from me, the dark carpet a gulf between us. She crossed her legs, hands folded on top of one thigh, and regarded me.

  I glanced out the window and watched the Gallery disappear behind us, its roof showing for a moment, then disappearing.

  I became very aware of the in-and-out rush of my breath.

  “I’d heard the two of you were in town,” Sandra said. She continued studying me.

  Self-conscious, I reached up and made sure I hadn’t misaligned a button on my blouse or something.

  She saw and laughed. It was a musical laugh. Beautiful, like the rest of her. Blonde hair around a symmetrical, high-cheeked face, full lips, a figure an aerobics instructor would kill for. Perfect, in short.

  “Sorry, I’m just trying to figure you out.”

  “What you see is what you get,” I said, shifting against the seat bolstering.

  “Maybe that’s why he likes you so much,” Sandra said. She gave me another once-over look. “You’re certainly not his usual type.”

  That rubbed me the wrong way. “And what’s that?”

  She laughed again. “Me, of course.”

  This isn’t how I thought this would go, I thought. I thought she’d be different. But rather than the wonderful woman I thought I knew from interviews and talk shows, she reminded me of a pretty girl who bullied me in junior high. Jessica Smart.

  I didn’t like the association.

  “Thank you for taking the time to see me…” I started.

  “Oh, I wanted to arrange some meeting. I’m glad you did, first. I’ve been looking forward to this, actually,” Sandra said.

  I’d skipped out on lunch because I was so nervous. My stomach was a tiny, hard ball inside me. I could tell we were different people, inside and out.

  “I wanted to ask you about…”

  “The dirt? Yeah, I thought so,” Sandra said.

  She leaned forward conspiratorially, as though we weren’t the only occupants of the limo, “The sex is great, isn’t it? But the rest of it? Did he try to take you to that stupid Wild West set…?”

  She thinks I’m here to gossip!

  I raised a hand to stop her, “No, sorry. I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about the breakup.”

  She leaned back against her seat, crossing her arms. “That? What about it?”

  “What happened?” I said. I leaned forward in spite of myself, my fingers pushing into the leather seat. “What really happened?”

  She looked disappointed, and I realized it was because she realized that I didn’t want to talk about my sex life.

  She flicked her hair with a quick shake of her head, “What was supposed to happen. Well, almost. Take it from me, don’t let that man really fall for you. I couldn’t believe the effort it took to get him to that last interview!”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?” I thought I might know already, though. I thought maybe I knew all along.

  Still, sometimes you need to hear the words. They’re more real, that way.

  “We’d had that breakup planned for months! And he almost didn’t go through with it. And that would’ve been a disaster. I had a movie coming out a couple weeks after that and I really needed the sympathy boost at the box office.” She smiled here, a shark’s grin. “And I got it. Biggest opening night of my career. So far, anyway.”

  She looked me in the eye from across the cabin. “So what’s in it for you? I can’t figure that out. Did Rudy promise you a big payoff? Just make sure it’s substantial, that little rat always tries to lowball you. Trust me on that.”

  “Rudy?” I said. I felt heavy. I leaned back.

  “Yes, his agent. Well, our agent. But don’t let Vance know that. Wait, are you telling me you didn’t know any of this?”

  “So it was all fake? All a sham?” I said.

  She shrugged, flipping her hair again. She looked out the window and I got the distinct impressions that she was getting bored with me. “Like I said, the sex was good. What are you getting out of this? Come on, don’t hold out on me.”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “Him, I mean. No money or anything.”

  She laughed again. “Now there’s a raw deal. What’s he getting out of it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned towards me. The limo rolled over a small bump. “Emma…”

  “Erin,” I corrected.

  “Right, that’s what I meant. No one at our level does anything unless they’re getting something for it.”

  She acted like she was gifting me this great pearl of wisdom or something, and her tone became more condescending as this shared ride went on.

  “What if what he’s getting is me? What if I’m what—who—he wants?”

  I bristled when she gave me another appraising look. “I don’t think so, honey.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said.

  Is she? I wondered. Because what she said out loud were thoughts I refused to give form to, floating around in the back of my mind.

  “You’re at the Lanesborough, right?” Sandra said, “Vance always stays there when he comes to London. Sometimes I miss those four-poster beds.”

  I stayed quiet. On the outside, at least. Within, I roiled like a violently boil cauldron.

  I guessed that she’d been driving me back to the hotel the whole time, because it wasn’t long before we pulled up to the lavish front door.

  A red-coated valet scampered over and got the door, letting the daylight spill back into the cab.

  I started getting out, bracing my hands against the door. Sandra reached out and touched my wrist. I looked back at her.

  “If you enjoy the tabloids back home, wait until you get a load of the rags they sell on this side of the ocean. They’re great. Nice meeting you by the way, Emily.”

  “Erin,” I said, stepping out of the car. “My name is Erin.”

  “Whatever,” Sandra said before the valet closed the door and ended our conversation.

  I hugged myself against the touch of cold in the air. That heaviness still weighed inside of me. On top of all that, my mind reeled.

  I’d known all of this before, I realized. I’d just blocked it all. Locked it all away. Because the fantasy was so much nicer than reality.

  The fantasy that someone like Vance could be with someone like me.

  But fantasies weren’t real. And sooner or later, you always have to return to reality.

  Chapter 25

  VANCE

  I arrived back at the Lanesborough breathless, as though I ran the eighty-odd miles from Dover to London.

  I got out of the car in front of the hotel. Before going in, I stopped and looked around at the patio and the street beyond it. Nothing. Just traffic, pedestrians, Hyde Park in the background.

  I hurried up to my floor. I wondered which room to go to first, mine or Erin’s.

  Erin’s, I figured.

  I knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. I knocked again.

  “Erin? It’s me.”

  Still nothing.

  That tenseness in my stomach increased. I swallowed when it climbed up into my throat, but it didn’t go away.

  I went down the hall to my door, digging my key card out as I did.

  The lock on the door flashed green when I waved the card at it and I put my shoulder to it. Inside, I found Erin in the same spot as when we first arrived in London.

  She leaned against the window frame, looking out over the park. She didn’t turn when she heard me come in.

  “You didn’t answer any of your texts,” I said.

  I thought about walking up behind her, wra
pping my arms around her waist, pulling her body against mine. I wanted to. Badly.

  But I didn’t. I could sense it wasn’t the right thing to do.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  She turned to face me. Redness filled her cheeks. Her eyes looked strained. I couldn’t tell whether she was about to cry or fly off into a rage.

  “What is what?” I replied.

  “Us!” she said. “What’s going on with us? Is it real or isn’t it?”

  I frowned. “Of course it’s real.”

  “As real as what you and Sandra had?” When I didn’t answer right away, she continued. “Yes, I know about that. I know all about it.”

  “You spoke to her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Your whole relationship was a sham. How can you live like that? Is this is sham, too?”

  I breathed in, held the breath, breathed out. It felt as though some important foundation fell away from beneath my feet.

  Part of me wanted to ask when she and Sandra talked. How they got together. But I knew that didn’t matter. It only mattered that Erin knew now.

  “It wasn’t a sham for me. Then or now,” I said.

  “What are you talking about? She said you guys had everything planned for months in advance!”

  I reached up and rubbed at the rough stubble on my cheeks. It rasped. Where to start?

  I looked at Erin and knew that I needed to start, right away. The angry red flush in her face didn’t go away. She looked so hurt, betrayed. Because of me.

  And I knew if I didn’t start, she could walk out that door and out of my life.

  I forced my hands down my sides, hooking my thumbs into my belt loops. I forced myself to look right at Erin.

  “There are a lot of arranged relationships in this business. Put together by producers, by agents, by the actors themselves. People will do anything to advance their careers.

  “Sandra and I were supposed to be like that,” I said.

  “Supposed? What does that mean?” Erin said.

  I wanted to go to her, wrap my arms around her. I could see her quivering from across the room.

  But I also knew that I couldn’t. Not yet, at least.

  “It means what I said,” I continued, “It was supposed to be like that for us. Mutually beneficial is how people usually put it. Except I fell for her for real. Although I know now it wasn’t her, but the woman she was pretending to be for the benefit of the press.”

  I grimaced at the press of memories pushing forth inside me.

  “The worst of it is that sometimes I still miss her. Or I used to, before I met you,” I said. “It came down to the big, fateful interview. The one we’d had preordained as the big breakup. I didn’t want to go through with it. She convinced me by dropping the façade, showing me who she really was.

  “That night hollowed me out for a long time. She wrenched something important out of me, and I didn’t think I could get it back. Not until you, Erin.”

  Erin broke eye contact, staring out over her shoulder at Hyde Park.

  She didn’t answer for a long time, and I didn’t push her. We stood on a greased rope, the slightest move threatening to send us tumbling off.

  And the thing was, I realized that I really didn’t miss Sandra anymore. And I knew I couldn’t let myself lose Erin.

  I watched her think it over, chewing on her bottom lip. The bottom lip I loved to kiss so much.

  Will I get to kiss it, kiss her, again?

  After an eon, she looked up, “I believe you.”

  I nodded.

  “But I have a question,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “Are we an arranged relationship, Vance? Because I can’t do that. I’m not that sort of person. Because how can I know it was ever genuine and real? How can I know it wasn’t all an act?”

  The questions hammered me. I stiffened my legs, refusing to lean back against the wall. The truth, tell her the truth.

  This time, I didn’t stop myself from going to her. I reached out, put my hands on her slender arms. She looked up into my face, her eyes wet and reflective.

  This close, I could smell the light floral scent of her shampoo. I always liked how she didn’t douse herself in perfume like some other women did.

  “We were supposed to be,” I said. “But it’s more than that. So much more. My agent tried setting the whole thing up, planting photographers, trying to tell me what to do, where to take you. I went along with some of it, but it all stopped. I don’t care about any of that, Erin, I just care about you.”

  Again, she kept looking up at me. The wetness in her eyes never spilled over into tears. She held them back.

  She’d never felt so close but so far as she did then.

  “It sounds to me,” she said, only the slightest quaver detectable in her voice, “that you keep letting things get too personal. Maybe you should have a nice, long chat with Rudy about that. I mean, it’s a bit different this time. He’s not representing both sides like before. But you have to work on your execution.”

  Both sides? I thought.

  Except I didn’t want to think about any of that anymore. Even though I held onto Erin, I could feel her slipping away.

  “I’m sorry for all of that,” I said. “But this isn’t the end. I’m not going to let it be the end.

  Erin put her hands on my chest. She went up on her tiptoes. She kissed me, lightly, sweetly. Then she lowered back down. When she stepped back, I didn’t hold onto her.

  I cursed myself for that: for not holding on harder.

  “Goodbye, Vance.”

  She walked out of my hotel suite.

  I gave her some time, then went over and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer.

  When I went down to the front desk, they told me that she checked out and had asked for a cab to take her to Heathrow.

  I ran outside, into the coolness of the fall air, but her cab was long gone.

  A man and a woman walking a black-spotted Dalmatian saw me. They took out their phones and took pictures.

  I went back inside.

  My hands shook so much I could barely bring up my contact list on my phone. Something hot coursed through me. Something explosive.

  I hit the call button and put the cell to my ear.

  The answer came on the second ring.

  “Hey, kid,” Rudy said, “You have any clue what time it is?”

  It was mid-afternoon in London, which put it late evening in LA. I didn’t care.

  “It’s over, Rudy. Me and Erin.”

  Rudy’s voice became muffled when he moved the phone away to curse. His voice came back, “That’s no good. It wasn’t supposed to happen until closer to the premier! You have any clue what I spent on photographers so far? What the hell happened?”

  I sat on my bed, facing the window. From this angle, I could see clear across the park to the other side. Not even an hour ago Erin stood there, watching that park.

  “I told her the truth,” I said.

  “Now why would you go and do something like that? That’s not smart. I gotta tell you, kid, that’s real disappointing to -”

  “Shut up,” I said. I squeezed the phone hard, the case creaking in my grip, “I think it’s time you told me the truth, too.”

  “What? I don’t lie to you.”

  “Do you represent Sandra now, too? Did you make me go through all that with her just so you could double dip? Get a bigger cut? Did you throw me under the bus, Rudy?” I demanded.

  I stood up, unable to keep still. I grabbed the nearest bed post with my free hand and squeezed the hell out of the lacquered and carved wood.

  “I can explain. Just listen…” Rudy started.

  “No, you listen. You’re. Fired.”

  I should have done this long ago.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and ended the call, even as Rudy’s voice squawked something unintelligible over the speaker.

  And, while I still had some semblance of rat
ionality left to me, I blocked his number. Then I realized that he owned more than one phone.

  I threw my cell against the wall, where it shattered. Then I sat back down on the bed heavily.

  This isn’t the end, I told myself.

  Chapter 26

  ERIN

  A week went by. Vance tried getting in touch with me, but I never took his calls.

  I shredded the English postcards I received from him. I tore up the letters without opening them. I deleted the emails.

  That last wasn’t as satisfying, what with nothing tangible to rip apart.

  I prayed that he didn’t show up at my door. Because even then, feeling as I did, I didn’t know if I would hit him or kiss him.

  And that was what made me truly angry: that I still missed him.

  I also didn’t go into work.

  No one seemed to mind. I didn’t get any calls from Mitch or from anyone else asking after me. I supposed that they all figured I was still in London, “assisting” Vance.

  Instead I sat in my sweats in front of my laptop. There were some forms from UCLA up on my screen that I kept contemplating.

  My breakfast, a couple of now-cold slices of buttered toast, sat untouched beside the laptop. I didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

  Someone knocked on my door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  “Hey,” Sam said, stepping inside. She left my door open. “You want to talk yet?”

  Mandi, Sam and Jasmine gave me a wide berth when I came back home so early and so unexpectedly.

  That was probably for the best. They didn’t deserve to be the outlet for my anger. Because I knew I had only myself to blame.

  Well, myself and Vance.

  “Not really. I’m not really the best person to talk to right now. I’m sort of a wreck,” I said.

  She sat on my bed, leaned forward so that she could put a hand on one arm of my chair. I kept my hands clasped tightly together between my thighs.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “It’s over. Just let me leave it at that. It’s over.”

  I knew there must be something on the gossip websites. Rumors, speculation. I didn’t know exactly what, since I didn’t let myself check those sites.